


Landslide

by belikebumblebee



Category: Wynonna Earp (TV)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-17
Updated: 2017-05-17
Packaged: 2018-11-01 23:09:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,009
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10931961
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/belikebumblebee/pseuds/belikebumblebee
Summary: Eighteen marks the turning point of Waverly's anger.





	Landslide

Eighteen marks the turning point of Waverly’s anger. 

It’s hard to be anything but pissed off when Wynonna leaves her graduation party early, and harder still the next morning when Gus is cussing and Curtis is turning his empty wallet in his hands with a tired expression. “That’s Wynonna for you,” Gus spits, like this one thing sums up a quarter century of life just perfectly, and Waverly feels like it does. 

But in the evening, Waverly climbs onto the back of the truck Curtis let Wynonna have when she got her license, and lies down. Watches the blue sky above her fade to different washed out pastel colors, and the light dims and dims until she feels like she could go swimming in this sea of stars arching out endlessly. At her back is the rusted, dirty metal of the truck, pressing dried leafs into her hair. The world feels too big, and too small, all at once.   
Her mind drifts, from the college applications on her desk to the book under her bed, to Wynonna, intense and urgent: “Never again.”

Waverly remembers being twelve, and how she would lie awake sometimes thinking about that gun. About what it must have felt like for Wynonna, because she had been exactly her age then. She tried to talk to Wynonna about it, and Wynonna brushed her off, told her not to worry about it. To keep it to herself. 

This is where Wynonna had been at the time, Waverly thinks: eighteen, with the world too big and too small at the same time. Her big sister was gone, too, the one she’d been so close with. 

She starts to forgive then, but forgiveness takes time, and must be tended to. 

Waverly forges her future between books and beer mugs, and the world stays as big and small as it felt when she was eighteen. Big, when she thinks about everything there is to know, about the secret in her chest (and her book shelves, and her storage boxes, and the board behind the curtain), about the freedom in her choices. And small, when she thinks about doing it all by herself. About Wynonna’s occasional emails from internet cafes around the world. About Champ. 

Sometimes she remembers to keep forgiving; a piece for every birthday Wynonna remembers, a piece for every time Waverly spends the anniversary of her family’s death with Gus and Curtis, knowing that Wynonna is alone. Waverly imagines her on trains and busses, sometimes, in crowded market places, picking pockets. Sometimes she thinks of her when she studies a language, imagines them together in Italy, Waverly bargaining with merchants, Wynonna impressed with her skills. Sometimes she imagines Wynonna strolling into Shorty’s, ordering a beer and a hug. In her absence, Waverly imagines her turning twenty-four, twenty-five, twenty-six… 

She builds her life around empty spaces: one for her mom, one for her dad, one for each of her sisters. When Wynonna comes back, she almost fits into the one meant for her. Until she doesn’t: until she stays. 

Waverly remembers being five, and crying into her teddy bear’s ears in the middle of the night. How gunshots had rung outside, the sound of shattering glass, her father's voice echoing back from the treeline. She’d been scared, but she’s not scared anymore.   
  
“You’re right,” Wynonna says, a drop of blood at her throat, “I’m sorry.”  
“I forgive you,” Waverly tells her, and she does: a piece for how she stayed, a piece for how she’s trying. (A piece for every time she calls her ‘baby girl’.) 

Everything shifts, and with such force. In between, Waverly yells at Wynonna to finally do the heaps of laundry lying around, and comes home to the wash hung and the bathroom scrubbed. That’s different, too. 

Willa exceeds the space in Waverly’s life in the first five minutes they spend together. It’s the way she sets her mouth, Waverly thinks, still the same as when they were kids. She remembers being seven, tracing Willa’s necklace. 

She remembers being four; she gave Willa a picture she drew. “Thanks,” Willa said, letting it fall to the floor.

She remembers Willa extending her thumb and index, shooting her with her hands.

She remembers the beam.

She remembers her laughter, watching cartoons on a Sunday morning, and sharing ice cream. All in all, she doesn’t remember much about her oldest sister at all, but her mouth: she remembers the set of it, tentative, disapproving, curved into a smile. 

“In the meantime, you’ve got me,” Waverly says, and she’s trying. But forgiveness takes time. (A piece for the coconut oil. A piece for how relieved she looks when Waverly reloads her shotgun.) 

In the end, time is cut short.

Christmas is celebrated in the hospital, and across the space between their beds, Wynonna gives Waverly a silvery charm bracelet: a virgo sign, a bullet, a high heel, a key, a book, and a star. 

“Merry Christmas,” Wynonna says. Waverly expects her to avoid eye contact, but she looks back at her, steady and true. “I was gonna wrap it and get us a tree and invite the other idiots for homemade Christmas punch, but you kind of shot me, so… oh no,” she adds, quickly heaving herself out of bed. She groans, keeps her torso stiffly, and that just makes Waverly cry more. “Shit, I didn’t mean it like that. I’m sorry, Waves.” 

Cursing under her breath, Wynonna climbs into bed with her. 

When Matthew the night nurse swings by, they hide their secret Christmas booze and offer him chocolate, Waverly tucked into Wynonna’s side as best she can without hurting her. 

“If my present is something funny, I’m kicking you out of bed,” Wynonna warns, “don’t you dare make me laugh. Laughing hurts like a _bitch.”_

(It’s a motorcycle helmet, and stuffed inside is a shirt that says “world’s okayest heir”, which makes Wynonna breathe shakily as she tries to contain her laughter and cusses her out.)

Everything has shifted. People change. And sometimes, forgiveness happens in landslides.


End file.
